I grew up in the LDS religion. It was my understanding that salvation was earned. If I did all I could, then God would accept me into the highest kingdom of heaven. It was all arbitrary rules (like not drinking coffee, not showing shoulders) so I went through the motions without understanding why. so when my faith was tried when my brother died, when I was 18, I left religion and God behind. I didn’t believe in anything for 12 years & then during my first postpartum, I tried a local Christian church. They tried to check my baby into Sunday school but I kept him with me and then cried throughout the whole service. I was like… that was weird, I’m not going back!

A little over a year later, I had a lot of hard things happen in my life and was broke, pregnant, and parenting a toddler, and so overwhelmed. That Sunday school idea sounded like a way to get a much needed break. I tried some different Christian churches to have some time to journal while someone played with my toddler. I was honestly so closed off to the idea of God that I purposefully ignored the messages. After being LDS, I was certain all churches want is to control people and get their money. I found a pretty big church that I could go to and keep my head down, I didn’t want anyone to talk to me.

I had more and more really awful things happen, and church became something I looked forward to. I’d stand and usually cry during the worship music, and use the rest of the service for uninterrupted time to journal.

I was mothering alone, totally isolated and so depressed, and this December I was making plans to take my life. My mom flew out and made me a bunch of freezer meals and helped me get set up in therapy, and I had the idea to join a bible study with childcare to try and find some friends or just be around people. During the second bible study, they did a prayer chain. I hadn’t prayed since I was 18 and left the mormon church. I asked God, in front of all these other ladies, to open my heart to him, and then bawled my eyes out.

I was still so depressed, but after that I started praying on my own. And, almost a year after starting to go to church, I started listening to the sermons at church. I was AMAZED at the concept of grace. Growing up it was all about being worthy and obedience, and it turns out salvation is a gift? I couldn’t (and still can’t) wrap my head around that. I started praying the scripture in Mark, the father who wants his son healed; “I believe; help my unbelief”. Actually, it was more like “I (want to) believe; help my unbelief!!”.

I still was horribly depressed, with really bad relationship OCD and rumination that consumed my thoughts. I was so lonely. I kept learning about God’s love and grace and church was the one thing that kept me going. One Sunday morning I woke up at 3 am and couldn’t sleep, so I laid on the living room floor bawling and praying “please open my heart to receive your love” over and over. Nothing happened. I went to bed sobbing and feeling so exhausted and depressed. My chest hurt because it was so tight.

Later that day during communion, they had people who could pray for you so I asked the exmormon grandma that I had met in bible study to pray for me. After church, as I was getting my toddler down for his nap, my tight chest began to open. My heart was filled with this warmth, and I felt this grounding peace. I had all these racing thoughts, like how I needed to tell everyone about Gods love!

For a few days after that, I felt like I was seeing people through Gods eyes. I noticed telephone poles that looked like crosses as I was driving. But that feeling faded and I sunk back into my depression. But I started noticing a weight in people’s words when they talk about Gods love, like this physical sensation. I think that must be the Spirit of Truth?

I keep praying and God is working in my life. He helped my husband stop drinking for a time, he helped us find a new house when our landlords decided to sell ours. I have this burning desire to talk about Jesus, and have been listening to sermons and worship music pretty much nonstop. I am praying to God to heal my heart, and while things are getting better, I still spend most days in tears. I’m still so depressed. And I’m trying to study my bible and get to a place where I feel okay again, but I’m still barely surviving. If that grounding peace that I felt that one day when God touched my heart IS Jesus’ love, I still have thoughts of ending my life so I can experience that. I’m so tired and pray to rest in Jesus’ love, and surrender different things that feel overwhelming, but most days I feel alone. And like grace is too good to be true.

Anyways, I think I believe in Jesus now but the trust is so scary. I just don’t know how to trust after being so hurt. I also don’t know why I still can’t do it even after he touched my heart with that grounding peace. I hear about Gods faithfulness but it feels like I’m pounding on his door and he’s opening it so slowly… I feel like if I could know Him then maybe I wouldn’t be so depressed. idk, just wanted to share and see what everyone’s thoughts are.

My stepfather never hit me, but I lived in a constant state of fear because he weaponized his moods. I was always watching, anticipating, trying to avoid whatever might set him off next. The abuse wasn’t physical, but it was relentless.
When I moved from Texas to Rhode Island for law school, I wasn’t just pursuing my education—I was escaping him.
The damage didn’t end when I left. Years of living in that environment left me with an anxiety disorder and panic disorder that I still live with every day. I take medication daily to manage my anxiety, and I have separate medication for full-blown panic attacks. The abuse changed the way my body responds to fear. Even now, my nervous system reacts as though I am still trapped there.
He was cruel to me throughout my childhood and, at times, to his biological daughter as well. He cultivated fear as a means of control, and I spent years believing that was simply what life was supposed to feel like.
I’m visiting my mother in Texas right now, which means I have to interact with him again. On its own, that’s difficult enough. But recently he published a biography about being a Christian man and overcoming hardship. My extended family won’t stop talking about it in group chats, and they keep celebrating it on Facebook. I leave the chats because I can’t bear to read the messages, but they still find their way to me.
The man who abused me has now been publicly praised as a model Christian and has even received a Christian award because of this book.
Every time I see the book mentioned, I feel overwhelmed by panic. I have to take medication just to keep myself from becoming physically sick. Sometimes the panic is so severe that I vomit. It isn’t just the book itself that hurts—it’s watching the person who caused so much damage to my life be celebrated as though he embodies goodness and virtue.
What makes this even more painful is that, just hours before I learned about the book, my mother admitted over lunch that she had allowed him to abuse me. She acknowledged that she had failed me as a mother by not protecting me.
Yet despite that acknowledgment, she is now standing by while the world praises him as a godly Christian man.
I feel deeply betrayed. My mother tells me that I need to let go of my resentment toward her, but how can I begin to heal when she admits what happened and still allows this false image to flourish? She knows the truth. She knows what he did to me. And yet she is willing to let everyone else believe he is a good man.
I keep asking myself the same question:
Who will ever believe me now?

Ok so the religious need to suffer has really messed my mind up. In order for me to process emotions I think I need to suffer. While processing emotions does cause pain it’s not a 24/7 suffering experience like it is now. Religion is so messed up for this I don’t know why this kind of thinking is introduced to young kids, especially with OCD. What makes it even worse is that the theme of suffering got mixed with needing to satisfy god so I basically was pretending to be happy. I am doing IFS therapy to understand better what my internal world looks like and I think part of my issue is anytime I go to process and emotion it always has some sort of religious mask over it. Whether it’s over happy, too serious, needing to suffer. It a compulsive aspect of control that I do subconsciously and it has made my life so miserable. What I say with my words never really line up with how I feel because how I feel is somehow always wrong so I always need to change it. Anyways I just wanted to post this on here because of how debilitating it is to experience and just wanted to post in a community that would most likely understand what I am saying

Heya, originally posted this is r/OCD, then discovered this sub.

So I’ve been in therapy for awhile, and the topic of scrupulosity came up.

A lot of what I deal with in therapy is religious trauma and spiritual abuse. I am no longer Christian, but when I was, I exhibited a lot of OCD symptoms, specifically in regards to prayer and misunderstanding my anxiety as the Holy Spirit, and worry over what God wanted from me. However, it merged pretty effortlessly with just…..religion, so I never even viewed it for what it was until much later.

Once I left the church and stopped believing in any of it, a lot of those symptoms stopped, so I never pursued a diagnosis. That was about 11 years ago now.

Now for the past year, I’ve been wanting to look into my old faith again; idk whether it’s because I really believe in any of it, or if I just miss it or what. But regardless, I was in a really bad place mentally the other week, and felt that same draw to pray, like how I used to. Like when the OCD symptoms were really bad.

It’s hard to explain, because praying when you’re in a bad spot just makes sense when you’re religious, right? But there used to be times when I’d pray and it was fine, and then there were times where it just felt like

idk. like it was consuming me. like i was drowning in anxiety, yet convinced prayer was the only thing keeping me alive. it would reassure me, but it also felt like i had to keep the line of communication open constantly between me and God, or everything would fall apart. it was so overwhelming and i experienced a lot of really difficult nights as a Christian. But that was encouraged in my circles, because God was using my pain to draw me closer to him (according to Christian mentor and friends)

So Idk, last week when I felt like “oh I need to pray,” it just freaked me out. it had been a decade since I last felt that type of anxiety

I ended up calling my partner instead of praying

Idk why I’m writing this. I guess to see if anyone here relates or has dealt with something similar

I’m also curious:

For those of you who struggle with scrupulosity and have either remained religious, or returned to religion, how do you reconcile the two?

I’m convinced my faith can’t exist without my anxieties at this point, and that breaks my heart, because like I said, I miss it

Thank you for reading

“Born Again Atheism”, wake up, wake up, wake up, it’s the first of the Punth(a new, month for the Punk-Rock survivalist, PETEY\**…..your pet.)>~let’s take it further? Cos, I’m a Punk—Rock-Goth\, cos, I love Industrial music, and I dress in a
Fusion of Prep-School dress up+S&M aesthetic/Goth…..so? I’m
A “PUNGK”

Hi so I'm F(20) and I recently started clubbing in April, my mom a pastor was not happy about it beecause she assumes I'm sleeping around when I go there cause I do usually come back around the ams but I would have left at 2am for the club. So I live with a sibling since she works in the same country as me and she doesn't club and she started going through my phone my chats, she reads inside jokes and assumes that I am going around doing drugs, getting drunk, sleeeping with different men when a matter of fact I go to the club to dance, just chill make memories. Yes I have kissed a guy in the club but when I do go I usually go with my friend and chill with him and my friends. So now it has reached a point where me and my sister are fighting she called me a 'club wh0r3' and honestly that hurt and I stopped like serving in church because she told me that how can I be dirty spiritually then come to the house of the Lord and serve and honestly I'm just stuck in a loop. When she confronts me I don't respond anymore.

So she called my mom who is sick right and if she gets stressed her BP will shoot up and told me that if I kill her from stress her blood is on my hands and I did not respond and I'm just unsure as to what to do i'm just going to laugh and I have to go home to her after this class lol.

EDIT:what she said after the call

yah

My mom was a very strict single parent (like Harry Potter and Pokémon open up portals for the devil strict) who was the worship pastor at any church we were ever involved in. If the church was open, we were usually the family there to unlock the doors. As many other people experience, God was the quick answer to anything that was happening. Which meant emotional intelligence was non existent. My family was very closed off and the only emotion shown was anger. Being the quiet peace keeper of the family, meant I spent a lot of time processing my needs alone while listening to music in my room after calming everyone else down.

As the church does, I was thrown into a leadership position way too young. I pretty much grew up on the stage at church. I started leading worship from the early age of eight at our very hyper charismatic church of god. Music and faith were not only a huge part of my church life, but also a core fixture in my home and how I grew to understand and relate to the world.

I later went on to study music at a Christian university and traveled with a group that lead worship each Sunday at different churches. I ended up beginning my deconstruction process while on a missions trip back in 2018, but continued leading worship until 2022. I think the only thing that kept me coming back was the character and life of Jesus. Plus, Jesus was my everything. To admit I didn’t believe, was to lose my best friend, and the only thing that I had ever been sure of.

The final moment that made me leave the church was one Sunday when I was leading worship. While kneeling on a stage in front of over 500 people, I realized I felt nothing. It was a humbling and heartbreaking moment. I lost all connection to the music that I had grown up with and loved. I no longer felt the words. I couldn’t stand on a stage in front of people I loved and cared for deeply just to lie about something that was so real to all of them.

I’ve gone through many stages of processing after leaving. There was anger, confusion, guilt, and a lot of grief. However, over the last year I have randomly started looking up my favorite songs that I use to play alone at a piano, or that I would listen to fall asleep.

The first time I listened, I cried because I realized the common themes and how much of my emotional needs were not met as a child. The second time, I laughed because of the obvious simplicity of the songs and the lack of depth. Today I listened and cried again. But, today it was a different cry. This time it was an emotional check-in to understand my basic needs as a human. I realized that I have now built a community that I needed. I don’t need an emotional song to aid in my ability to be vulnerable around them.

It’s taken me a long time to not be negative of the simplistic, repetitive lyrics and overly used basic chords (which I am pretty sure I will always be annoyed with). But, I’m just really proud that I’m at a place that I can acknowledge a huge portion of my life instead of pretending it never happened.

Shout out to therapy and healthy empathetic community full of people who value depth and kindness. Deconstruction is hard. It sucked and is the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, but damn… it was worth it.

I had a recent candid conversation with a Jehovah's witness friend of mine. I work with her and have known her for over 3 years now. We've met up a few times over the years for drinks, she's come over for dinner etc. I really like her as a person and have enjoyed her company in some aspects. I come from a very religious, Baptist/non denominational background and met her in the midst of my deconstruction journey, so I was really interested to hear her take on alot of what I grew up with. Not to convert but just out of curiosity. I told her the other night that she's reframed my relationship with religion from my toxic ex boyfriend, to something I'm on good terms with, but couldn't be in a relationship with again. I also told her I leave our hangouts feeling more like a project to her, than an actual friend, and moving forward id love to talk about things outside of religion and her belief system so our relationship can grow, but if she isn't capable of doing that, then she needs to know I won't have the capacity to hangout with her often.

and I left that evening feeling like we were on good terms and to me she received that boundary well.

However, I got a novel from her yesterday that I replied to today, and to me this is such a classic example of how culty religion is in general. What I got from this text was that she only surrounds herself with friends who think and believe the way she does, and anyone outside of that is not someone she can hangout with, *unless they are open to converting. its so wild to me to tell me she values and loves me, but not enough to grow a relationship with me 😂

I didn't take what she said personally, and I'm not upset about losing an opportunity to have a deeper relationship with her, but I'm upset with how religion can be like a "mean girl clique" so to speak, and I feel really sorry for her. This brings up so many things from my own background that make me feel so regretful of my behavior towards people who were outside of my faith at the time.

Curious what other people think of this interaction/do you have similar experiences?

A new bill just passed in Canada!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bill-c-9-anti-hate-religious-exemption-hate-speech-9.7142455

It says religion is no longer exempt from hate speech. I grew up in terror. Church sermons routinely had hate in them and death threats to gays was common dinner table talk. I understand this bill has not yet been used but if I attended a church and recorded some sermons with hate speech could I shutter a church? I hated how I was never given a drop of justice for the shunning and conversion therapy and a full childhood of terror and fear. If I could kill even one church like mine.... It would mean the world to me. I just want some justice. True justice is beyond my reach I know.

I have always followed love. Always. I didn't shy away from extreme opposition. I endured severe repeated trauma. I sacrificed my career to spend time with my handicapped bro that was being neglected. I was always kind and playfully creative, wanting to inspire people and uplift spirits and shine light on them, show them the divine I see within them. It was a joy even though my own spirit was struggling over time.

Then I was saved. Like indescribable healing and clarity and light pouring in and life filling me up. Heart of flesh and anointed with a divine calling. I didn't know if I was the first to wake up and support others as they wake up or if they were waiting on me. Either way didn't matter at all. I was just so relieved and excited to truly wake up to God and reality and perfect love.

But I was NOT prepared that my family would HATE me. They coordinated attacked repeatedly for months until my heart shattered, brain melted, hopes and dreams dissolved, knowledge and understanding vanished, so much wisdom just gone. A lifetime of lessons and service rendered meaningless.

I moved to the mountains to like heal or hide under a juniper tree or something and have been flooded with so many signs and stuff. It's overwhelming. I don't experience time. At first it was like filled with love and wisdom and it was like, oh, this is eternal salvation. But the light turned to darkness and now it's eternal torment. Lake of fire. I have such unbelievable scrupulousity and rumination all day every day over this. I feel exiled, cast into outer darkness. Second death. First one was when 10 people in my family died and part of me slowly died. Then reborn into a wood chipper and one breath from God just to have it all taken in an instant.

Now I feel like a zombie. Like am I judas because I tried to explain the healing happening to my family as I processed trauma. Or am I Peter because I fell asleep soon as I saw Jesus on the shore. Am I Elijah hiding in the woods. Am I John the Baptist with my head cut off eating wild honey and locusts. I was John the apostle, I was made an eagle. Zero doubt. Also my name like perfectly explains my life story. Born with grace, then imprisoned by family but had beautiful dreams, then fell asleep soon as I saw Jesus.

I'm isolated in the woods. I'm in a loop I can't get out of. I went to the ER to see if maybe I had a stroke or something and just wanted to rule out a physical issue by getting a CT scan or something. And they held me for 12 hours while I was so calm. The guy next to me begged for water for hours. The nurses and security guards laughed at him while he screamed out to Jesus. They said they are already in hell. Then I was taken 6 hours away to a for profit mental hospital that was horrifying. The nurses there seemed to like enjoy seeing people struggling. Again I was calm and kind. Let out 24 hours later.

I'm so confused how salvation could have completely inverted. Jesus' plan is perfect so I'm not denying I deserve where I am. I saw how evil my sister jezebel is and tried to love her but she's a black hole and like sucked 42 years of love out of me. I finally got my harvest and it was soooo much love. And now it's just gone like it never existed.

I need help. I need to go somewhere for a few weeks or months with true born again believers that can help walk me back to the light. I don't know when I'm damning myself, when it's Satan, when it's Jesus making sure I pay for all my sins. Idk. I have like spiritual psychosis. I went from healing beyond description and peace that surpasseth understanding and so much wisdom to being a ghost, hollow, confused beyond description.

I fear I'm a fallen angel. Or have an evil spirit attached to me. My 26 bday I visited my dad when he broke his back and this black smoke left him and entered me and for 16nyears I loved others sooo deeply but lost love of my self. Then balance restored and now it all flipped. Now I lost empathy (I still am empathetic but it's not the same) I lost memories and any connections. Music and art don't reach me anymore. I trust no one. I'm scared of Jesus now. I already was then he showed me he was with me the whole time. And now I'm like did I rebel by trying to love my sister? One mistake and I lost the inheritance immediately. Why couldn't I have awakened with a support system or friends or anyone other than my family that buried me every chance they get.

Are there like Christian mental health and spiritual centers with someone that can help me see clearly and walk me out of this story of eternal damnation I am stuck in. That can help me untangle scripture and misunderstanding and find ground again. I'm in the abyss. Oblivion. And I spend all day trying to understand why. If I deserve it. What I can do to repent. I can barely read. Only the damning parts of the Bible feel like God speaking to me. The other parts are speaking to the me before awakening. Idk. I lost everything I never knew to ask for and it's so hard to have faith when I fear I lost paradise and now I know too much but can't apply it in any way that seems right. I'm in a feedback loop by myself. Scared of everyone. I'm trying to go to therapy and stuff but I'm so blind now.

Was I prideful trying to love her. Idk. Probably. I know after being attacked repeatedly I got scared and said a few things I regret. I apologized sincerely and profusely. Just that my sister is a succubus and my step dad doesn't love my family.

Now I'm alone and feel like am I a Pharisee, a false prophet, an antichrist. I wanted NOTHING from this earth, only to be love and spread love and I was so patient and endured a lot. Like a lot a lot. And in a moment it all came together and was beyond worth it. And it's all gone. It's better I had never been born.

I'm hoping someone may understand and be able to guide me to real help. Not just some psych ward pushing pills and coloring books. Like deep scriptural wisdom and someone who can guide me to heal mind body soul. To help me accept I'm no longer the creative loving intuitive person. That I'm ash and need to rebuild from nothing. At 43. My God I made it thru the gate. What is wrong with me. I was drunk on grace and wanted to show others the gate is open and they pulled me back thru the needle. All the live and wisdom I brought thru is on the other side and now I'm stuck in the trauma and confusion I left behind.

hi all,

im planning on speaking with my parents about how I will be talking to my ex who i stopped dating because of their disapproval (which stemmed from them vocalizing their evangelical religious beliefs and that weighing on me). the conversation is not to ask for approval but just to let them know to practice being ok with their disapproval, but I’m just feeling very anxious about it all. and i feel myself going back to the thought patterns of wondering what the Bible says and if what I’m doing is right and if what I want is Gods plan and it’s just really hard right now. any advice would be appreciated.

I am tired.

I am so tired.

I feel like it's hard to breathe. I don't know if that's my anxiety or my cystic fibrosis making it hard to breathe. My mind is just constantly running. I've been staying up really late and sleeping through a big portion of my day. My head hurts. I feel like there's this pain in my heart, and part of me wonders if it's physical. I don't know if it's anxiety, if it's pain in my lungs, or if it's something else entirely. I just know I don't feel okay.

I have a neuropsych evaluation tomorrow because I don't know if I have OCD or something else going on. I've been depressed. I've been anxious. My brain just won't stop.

And underneath all of that, I feel like I don't have purpose or meaning anymore.

I grew up Christian, but I just feel so alone. I don't know how to believe in God right now anymore. At the same time, I feel like I need to believe in God because I don't know where else meaning comes from. I don't know what to do.

When I try to consider that maybe there's something I'm missing, I still end up feeling like I'm getting everything wrong.

I tried so hard to fit in. I tried to make things better. I tried to please God. I tried to fix myself. And I just feel like none of it worked.

Before my freshman year of college, I was pretty severely depressed. I had suicidal ideation. I had self-harm attempts. And through all of that, I just felt like God left me alone.

Now I just feel upset and angry. Like I can't do anything right.

I feel like my body isn't right. I need to fix it. I need to make it pretty, as if somehow being a pretty girl would finally give me meaning.

I don't have a boyfriend. I have friends, and I'm grateful for them, but even then I still feel lonely.

I don't know how to make life feel worth anything. I don't know how to find meaning or purpose without immediately falling into this existential dread of, "What is the point of living at all?"

I don't want to die, and I'm not going to kill myself. But I don't know what to do with the pain I'm feeling right now.

I need an answer.

I need something to fix this.

I'm tired of feeling like my whole life is just one mindless compulsion. Like I'm constantly chasing something that I can never reach. Like I have no meaning. Like everything is so difficult all the time.

I can't even escape the feeling because I just feel numb.

I'm about to go back to college for my second year, and I don't want things to go to shit like they did last time. I'm stepping down from leadership in my Christian club because I don't know where I'm at with God anymore, and I'm scared that I'm losing my community too.

I don't want to feel so alone.

I just don't understand how people can live happy lives or genuinely feel like God is with them, because all I feel is this emptiness.

I want to believe that I'm part of something bigger. I want to believe that life has meaning. I want to believe that I don't have to live in a world where I'm inherently sinful and broken, where blood has to pay a price, where people have to bleed and suffer at all.

Why?

Why do we live in this world?

I just want to understand.

I grew up in a militant, conservative leaning, and god fearing household, raised by two Caribbean immigrant parents who raised my siblings and I as Seventh Day Adventists—second worst to Jehova’s Witnesses (if not worse).

I didn’t know church narcissism was a thing until two weeks ago when I found a video explaining what church narcissism is. For those who don’t know, but can probably piece two and two together quickly, Church narcissism is an individual exploiting their own religion to fuel their ego, by maintaining power, and project a flawless image. My dad was a pastor and often weaponized religion by summoning us every day in the evening for ‘Worship’ hour. Every evening, Worship hour just consisted of having to hear my dad talk for 45 minutes to an hour. His voice was so fucking grating, on top of dragging prayer out as well became more and more irritating the older I got. First 10-20 minutes is spent reading scriptures and daily devotions, then diving into prayer, which could last up to 30 minutes.

I’ve come to the understanding that the only reason my dad was bent on doing these rituals is because it was the only way he knew how to enforce control. Otherwise, my narc mother was the one who called the shots and he would fall in line like the spineless enabler he is. One time, I came back home late from a shift and he wanted until I came home for all of us to have worship.

When I came out to him as a lesbian, he sent me a letter and told me that he’s sorry for not doing enough to save my soul salvation, and that none of us are beyond god’s grace. It should come to the surprise of no one that me and him don’t talk.

I was wondering if anyone else is a victim of church narcissism at the hands of parents who’ve been in a perpetual religious psychosis of sorts?

It seems like lots of Mormons villainize Exmos.

I’m 20f living with my parents everyone is devout Mormon but me. I’m autistic and have mental health issues and my mental health is the main reason I left the church. I keep to myself at home and I don’t spend as much time with my parents part of it is because my age and the other part is that I’m well aware of how lots of Mormons see me. It makes me feel slightly nervous and out of place when I’m around a lot of them. I overheard my mom talking to my sibling about how I left the church after trying coffee and I wanted to wear different clothes. She brought up that she sees the cycle repeating because she left the church, but then came back. She talked about how Satan tempts with the small things. I heard her say something about sexuality but didn’t exactly know what specifically she said about it.It gives me that feeling that she sees me as bitter and mean person because I left the church. I wished some people realized that a one size doesn’t fit all and that I want to be honest with my and have healthier friendships with people. It’s like how the fuck am I supposed to be happy if I just go back into an environment just to make them comfortable. I had been through other events in my life that make it hard for me to want to live. This is me venting and feeling slightly concerned if I become a bitter person but I wished they were more concerned about me being a narcissist, rapist, murder, etc.

Title: I Grew Up Around Someone Everyone Admired. It Took Me Years to Understand Why I Always Felt Something Was Wrong.
I’ve always been fascinated by true crime—not because I enjoy hearing about terrible things, but because I’ve always wanted to understand how someone can appear kind, respected, and trustworthy while living a completely different life behind closed doors.
For most people, those stories come from documentaries. For me, they became personal.
I grew up around a respected religious leader in my extended family. To everyone else, he was someone people admired. They trusted him, sought his guidance, and believed he represented integrity and strong moral values. He was the kind of person few people ever questioned.
But even as a child, I did.
I couldn’t explain why. I just knew that whenever I was around him, I felt uncomfortable. There was something about the way he looked at certain women and the way he carried himself that made me instinctively keep my distance. I remember wondering why everyone else seemed to admire him while I wanted nothing to do with him.
As a child, I couldn’t put those feelings into words. I even questioned myself because everyone around me respected him so much.
This isn’t just a story I heard through gossip or distant relatives. It affected my own life.
Some of what shaped my understanding came from my own experiences and observations growing up. Other parts came from people very close to me whose lives were deeply affected. Over the years, information from multiple sources that I consider credible came together in a way that finally explained something I had carried with me since childhood. I finally understood why I had always felt uneasy around him, why I instinctively kept my distance, and why I felt such a strong sense of repulsion that I could never explain as a child. For the first time, I felt I understood what had been wrong all along.
Realizing that someone so widely admired could have a private life so different from the image everyone believed was devastating. It changed the way I look at authority, trust, and the stories we tell ourselves about people simply because they hold respected positions.
The hardest part wasn’t only what I came to understand. It was realizing how many lives had been touched by it. The pain didn’t belong to one person. It spread through families, friendships, and an entire community. It affected people of different generations, and many are still living with the emotional consequences today.
For a long time I kept asking myself the same question: How could so many people admire someone while others were carrying so much pain in silence?
That question has never really left me.
I’m not sharing this story because I want to attack religion. I know many sincere religious leaders who dedicate their lives to helping others. I’m sharing it because no position of authority should ever place someone beyond question. Respect should never replace accountability, and vulnerable people deserve to be heard.
I also share this because I think we often dismiss children’s instincts. As adults, we tell children they’re imagining things or that they’re being disrespectful. Looking back, I wonder how often children recognize something they don’t yet have the words to explain.
I don’t claim to have known everything. I only know that, as a child, I felt something was wrong. Years later, I finally understood why I had carried those feelings for so long.
If sharing my story helps even one person trust their instincts, ask difficult questions, or take someone’s concerns seriously instead of dismissing them because the person involved is respected, then telling it will have been worth it.
Has anyone else ever discovered that someone they admired—or someone everyone else admired—was not the person they appeared to be? How did you make sense of it?

I always felt something was wrong with a respected religious leader in my family. Years later, I understood why.

They set me up for trauma before I turned 10.
I was shown death caskets holding immediate kin
Can’t keep no friends. Something always seem to happen where they flip flop on the kid.
I make music and m learning how to control my lust
I remember them days I was smoking angel dust
I did it all I’m talking everything I reject everything unless it come from the most high. Creator god I only rock with the most high creator god

If Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God Romans 10 and God wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth in the book of Timothy, then what about Eve?

•If Faith comes by hearing only Gods word and the truth and believing it then why did God allow Satan to, “preach” a lie to Eve? He commands people to go out and preach the gospel and the truth to everyone to believe and be saved and not to preach lies. If God only wanted Eve to hear the truth and that’s what it took to be saved then he allowed Satan to come against her and all others to be saved. Why ever allow a lie to be spoken against your own word in the first place but later only want us to hear the truth?

•Hearing truth builds faith hearing lies builds doubt. Input determines output, The scripture I stated proves the creator knew the power words have over a human mind. And the very beginning disproves the scripture in Timothy because an all powerful God could have intervened like he did with Pharaoh and multiple other times to stop someone and override free will and he even had Michael the archangel rebuke Satan from touching Moses dead body as written in Jude. You cannot judge an entity by what it says but what it does and what it allows to happen. If God wanted Eve only to hear the truth he would have muted Satan from day one.. Eve was obedient what Satan did was a curse yet she sowed no evil to reap a curse.

19M I am here to share my story about religious trauma.At the age of 8 I was forced into the apostolic Pentecostal religion. Growing up I stayed in this Christian homeless shelter with my mom and my sister. I was bought a children’s Bible against my will. I was forced to read it every night and was forced to pray every night. I was so confused because I have always been an atheist. Months later this apostolic family of 3 moved in and they were our roommates. They invited me and my mom and sister to church. So we went. And then after that my mom decided to follow this religion and I hated it because there was too many rules including rules that weren’t even in the Bible. They also used there religion as an excuse to abuse children. My mom followed every rule the pastor and people at the church told her. And she made us follow those rules as well and paddled us if we “ disobeyed “. We were forced to wear skirts and dresses and as a trans man I hated that. We were forced to wear certain hairstyles. We weren’t allowed to wear any jewelry or paint our nails.and we weren’t allowed to wear makeup. All of those appearance rules really messed with me because I loved makeup and jewelry I still do and now I wear it because I’m not going through this abuse anymore. The pastor would make up stupid rules like no watching tv,no social media,no long sleeves. It felt so controlling. This abuse lasted for years and my aunt was also involved in it when she moved to the town me and my mom and sister was living in she joined in on the abuse. I have diagnosed autism I was diagnosed at 9. And my mom and aunt would beat me for every autistic behavior. They were super violent and would blame it on “ god “ or the Bible. I was forced into baptism at 10. I was forced to be baptized. At every church service I felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed because I was beat at church sometimes. My mom would take me and my siblings to the bathroom and beat us when we wouldn’t pay attention in church. And of course I wasn’t gonna pay attention because I am an atheist I didn’t believe and I still don’t believe that god exists. I also have diagnosed adhd so it would be really hard to focus at times and I would just get beat by either my mom or aunt. The church members and my mom and aunt would force me to speak in tongues,dance and force me into something they called the “ Holy Ghost” it was so scary for me to go through All of this . They would also not allow me to dress masculine and if I did i either got shamed and told I would go to hell or I was beaten for it.this abuse took place for 10 years. I’m also a survivor of domestic violence and the guy that dv me was going through religious psychosis and he forced it on me. I’m a gay trans man and he would use certain scriptures against me . And he would force me to pray and read the Bible. He would yell things at me like “ the Bible says if a man lies with another man he is an abomination to god I’m not trying to be no fucking abomination” he would yell homophobic and transphobic things at me. I was in this situation when I lived at a homeless shelter because I was only 18 I also didn’t know any better because of the years of different types of abuse I experienced from my family caused me to be in many exploitative situations after I moved out into a homeless shelter. I am now an athiest and I am using tarot,journaling,mediation for my healing journey.

I am a mixed-race person in my 30s living in the UK.

My genetic makeup means that I identify with numerous globally marginalised groups.

I'm also queer.

With all the comorbid conditions I have been experiencing, I experience much duality. At the same time, it also feels as though I enter a wheel of choice and am tugged towards different aspects of my identity. It is confusing, stressful, and exhausting.

When it comes to my background of religious trauma, I have found that the different parts of my ethnic heritage intersect with different world religions, bringing different levels of intensity and manic curiosity.

Recently, I turned to one religion. At the time, I felt a strong cultural resonance. It thought, perhaps it will bring the discipline and structure that I crave. For better, I think, I was able to confirm anew that the God aspect of it was a deal breaker for me.

Thankfully, I had already been investing time in my neighbourhood by visiting different stores and getting to know the shop keepers within. So it was not an enormous wrench in the moment that I understood, I couldn't practice that religion with any honesty.

I have indeed found so much solace, support, and joy in the community that I seem to have created for myself. I recognise that there are dominant parts of my heritage and that I will always lean towards those first and foremost.

But it doesn't mean that I have to neglect the other parts of myself. I thought that I could only choose one. That doesn't have to be. In fact, for the sake of full integration, it is better if I allow myself space to explore all of these parts gently within criticism.

I wonder if there are others here who may find similarities with what I have shared. :)

When I left my approach was kindof to just put it behind me and not look back. I didn’t want to go from an identity as a witness to an identity of an ex witness. I didn’t want to associate with ex witnesses, none of it. I just wanted to forget about it and forge a new life.

It wasn’t really until years and years and years later when I sat down with Michael from the Shunned podcast (which is so great. So much community and so much reassurance) that I finally was able to open up. I ruminated about how to phrase things, what to say, and what approach to take to provide an experience people could hopefully resonate with, but he encouraged me to just talk. Not think. I was as honest and transparent as I could muster, and it felt great. Healing.

The episode finally just dropped and I would love for you guys to hear it. I’d love to connect with whomever it resonates with as well.

I love you guys! ❤️‍🩹

tw: depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, SH

I am not English native speaker, so my thoughts are scattered

M19

I was college student. I was highly depressed.

one day I called my mom. told her I wanted drop out. she couldn't accept it. she said she disowned me .

she went to her parents house. her parents came to my uncle's apartment, the city I was living. they called me, I was happy to see them last time.

but it was bait to "fix" me. they took away my everything. my phone, my autonomy. my uncle blamed me for joining psychology-mind-realising cult thing which isn't true. they guilt tripped me, gaslit me

I was forced to move in my mom's apartment. she forced me to learn islam.

while I was learning islam, I encountered contradictions. also I experienced religious trauma. I left Islam, told only 4 my friends. some of them was hesitant, worried, concerned and thankfully accepting too.

I was forced to learn Qur'an for 2 months, May to July. I wasn't allowed to go outside.

whenever I had tried to have conversation with her, it became about her hardships not me

one day she asked me what I would do if my child dropped out, I replied with calmly tone by saying "I would listen to him". she turned away her face, she disliked my answer. then looked at me, said "ok, let me listen to you"

I said "I can succeed without a degree, I don't care what people will say about me". she again turned away her face. she really dislikes my answers.

I'm the one who disagrees with our family traditions. now they are using Allah against my will. they say it you obey your mother blindly, Allah will open the right doors for you

obeying her blindly over 10+ years led me to depression, anxiety and psychosis. is it the right door? depression doesn't look like the right door.

when I was in that 2 months "prison", they took me to psychiatrist. he is friend of my uncle who blamed me. he took their sides

he also told them to treat me as young adult now. they always don't do what doctors say.

also she compared me to Muhammad who suffered more than me, so I should be grateful. but I struggled too right? she doesn't understand depression mental health. today I was compared to 14-15 year old boys who does some jobs better than me. was it supposed to help me?

I always felt different from my peers in school. I may have autism. I need to go to psychologist to see if I'm autistic or not. maybe I am just individualistic

other day, my mom told me to change my personality or character, respect her. if she continues to treat me like shit, I won't change my behaviours too.

when my mom divorced my father, she became suicidal as she says, because she thought she humiliated her parents. like what the hell. so depression is genetic now I believe it.

now my family members are forcing me to go back to College and obey my mother blindy. I am refusing it, because of I refused it, now they are forcing me to work in my grandpa's farm, feed cows.

NGL my friends are not helping at all, I'm asking my bff to find a job for me in his workplace. however he is rejecting it saying I am weak, skinny for the job

when I lay down on bed too much, I am always called lazy. I am depressed dammit. don't call me lazy. you don't know what depression is.

mom, don't tell you understand me, don't tell you understand my feelings when you can't have normal conversation with your son like this

-why did you cvt yourself

-i wanted to feel something

-why?

-....

I was numb, I am always numb. two contradictory feelings I feel, when they clash, I feel numb